So there I was on Monday morning, sitting on Sepulveda northbound, waiting for them to clear the crane so I could keep driving to Museum!Co, thinking about theology and creationism, and I figured I’d just riff a little something out, see what y’all think, use it as a nice, gentle way to ya know… ease back into blogging.

No pressure, right? Totally.

For those of you who may not know, my present religious status is what George Carlin called a “Recovering Catholic”. While I may not actively practice, I have about 18 years of in-depth education in theology, including time as an altar server (but not one of those altar servers) and almost a decade of time in Catholic School, which I once cracked up my meditation teacher by declaring, “You did CCD? Poser — some of us had to wear the plaid, okay?”

So for me, the religious rhetoric going around politics now is equal parts amusing and horrifying.

Here’s the thing – most of these right wing Christians don’t like Catholics either. They left us, remember? We’re the freakin’ pagans, and if you look at the history of Catholicism, it really does work a bit like a corporation — the guy at the top makes these high-flying declarations about how things will be, & the people at the lower levels hear that news, sigh, and decide, “That’s great, but we have to make it work here in the real world, so let’s just… figure this out as we go.”

Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill ‘em right back.

See here’s the thing – you have a choice. You can choose to survive. You can choose to adapt. You can choose to change your behaviors and capabilities in order to continue to live. If God gave us free will, then that is an inherent part of it — making the choice to extend your life if possible.

Now, since evolution’s principles are literally rooted in the survival of the fittest, wouldn’t it fall into the category of free will, which, as one of the many gifts God bequeathed to the world, we should embrace as part of His divine plan?

What you plan and what takes place ain’t ever exactly been similar.

If, as people are fond of saying, God is our father, then part of being a parent is allowing your child to learn, to grow. Because if you don’t do that, they won’t be able to take care of themselves. This is the cycle of life – as much as they might want to protect their offspring, all parents must allow their child to take risks & possibly move on from them. How many times has someone referred to their child in a way that equals the phrase “to do better than those who have come before”?

Well if we are made in God’s image, and this is a pattern of behavior which is commonly found across not only humanity, but throughout various species of life on this planet, what is to say that God isn’t implementing that philosophy with us?

If we hold to the tenet that we are God’s children, and that he has given us free will, would not evolution – which is a process of choosing to learn how to survive better than your precedents – thus be the ultimate expression of free will and the fulfillment of God’s parental love for us?

What if, as a parent, God’s plan for humanity was not that we continue on as humans, but that we as a race eventually learn how to become like Him? What if the reason we’re all debating the finish line is because we haven’t gotten there yet?

By trying to limit what others can know and thus not provide information which could be used to continue the evolution of humanity as a whole, Creationists inhibit our ability to choose to become more than what we presently know.

The right wing throws God’s name around like an actor’s drunk girlfriend trying to get free alcohol at the Standard, but the truth is that they are in fact worshiping the golden cow of their own fear, when true faith would be climbing the mountain despite uncertainty of what you might find at the top.